Sunday, March 02, 2003

Everyone in this house is coughing except me. Other people coughing, people telling you about their dreams--they're the same kind of annoying. They're both personal problems made public. Besides, illness is so confining. (And secretly I think that if you can't get over being sick in a few days, you've done something wrong. Blame the victim, I always say!)

Anyway, here's what I did this weekend:

Friday: Took Amanda to Ikea. They've redone the place and created a kid-care area called "SmalLand." There is an umlaut over the A, of course. SmalLand is run by White Marsh teenagers, and it seems to mostly involve watching a video while sitting on kid-sized Ikea furniture. Later, we went to the neighbors' for pot roast. It was good pot roast even though the husband made it. Nick went home, what with his cough and everything, and the neighbors and I stayed up late with a fire in the fireplace and Miller Lites. We had a good time til they started to snipe at each other in that marital kind of way ("Shut up, I'm telling a story!" "But you're telling it WRONG" "Oh, please, like you never tell a story wrong.")

Saturday: We went to dinner at the kabob place, which is in this strip mall in Cockeysville. For some reason, this strip mall was bumpin'. I don't know why, since all it contains is a couple restaurants, a store that sells madras pants, a dollar store, and a weird geeky comic store, but the place was packed with teenagers, most of whom were Asian, for some reason. Nick coughed throughout most of dinner, but at least he covered his mouth. Afterwards, I went over to my friend Tim's house where he and his friend are editing a movie in the basement. What the fuck with men and basements? Couldn't he just as easily edit this movie in the living room? Later, I came home and hung the windowshades I got from Ikea. You can tell they're cheap, but it's better than staring into the neighbor's bedroom while I blog.

Sunday: Ran eight miles and took Amanda to my mother's for dinner. When I left, Nick was coughing, and when I came back, Amanda was coughing too. My mother made pot roast. That makes two pot roasts in two days.

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.